TEXAS LEGISLATURE: Special session kicks off with abortion demonstrations

Abortion bill mobilizes supporters, opponents

Anti-abortion demonstrators wear tape with the message “life” as they stand in the rotunda of the Texas Capitol on Monday in Austin. The Texas Senate has convened for a new 30-day special session to take up contentious abortion restrictions and other issues.$RETURN$$RETURN$

Abortion rights supporters rally on the south lawn of the state Capitol in Austin on Monday. The Texas Senate has convened for a new 30-day special session to take up contentious abortion restrictions and other issues.$RETURN$$RETURN$

SAN ANGELO, Texas - AUSTIN — A crowd dressed in blue to protest abortion sang “Amazing Grace” as they held out crucifixes and rosaries. The Capitol rotunda rang with the sounds of song and the chants of abortion rights advocates dressed in orange and carrying clothes hangers.

The second special session of the 83rd Legislature kicked off Monday with the public demonstrations.

Thousands gathered at the Capitol to protest proposed abortion regulations in a “Stand with Wendy” display, referring to Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who filibustered the abortion regulations bills in a special session that ended last week. A much smaller crowd demonstrated for the bill in a “Stand4Life.”

Gov. Rick Perry called the new special session after the first special session — in which he added abortion as a topic halfway through — ran out of time due to the Senate filibuster and crowd uproar.

The new special session also will address transportation funding and juvenile justice, topics that didn’t make it out of the last special session because they were set to be taken up after abortion.

Mounted police watched from their horses as the abortion rights crowd covered the Capitol grounds dressed in orange. Demonstrators in blue represented anti-abortion protesters who are hoping the legislation passes.

A line of anti-abortion demonstrators walked up to an entrance of the Capitol that wasn’t swamped in orange.

“I think it will help reduce the slaughter,” Maureen Adams said of the proposed legislation,

walking with a group that said the Lord’s Prayer in unison as it headed toward the east entrance of the Capitol.

At the south entrance, the abortion rights demonstrators held a rally with a rock band, a country singer from the Dixie Chicks, a TV actress, numerous Democratic lawmakers, the president of Planned Parenthood, an airplane flying overhead with a banner stating “STANDWITHWENDY” and Davis herself dressed in orange.

“You all have given me and so many others a renewed sense of strength,” Davis told the noontime crowd Monday.

Davis filibustered in the Senate last week to help prevent a bill that would allow massive regulation of abortion.

The abortion bill, SB 5 from Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, had four parts. It would have banned abortion past 20 weeks of pregnancy on the premise that the fetus can feel pain; required that clinics offering abortions raise their standards to that of ambulatory surgical centers, which can handle day surgeries such as gallbladder surgery; required that doctors follow U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines for abortion-inducing drugs; and required that doctors performing abortions have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of a clinic where the procedure is being performed.

The requirements, particularly regarding the ambulatory surgical center requirement, would effectively shut down 37 of the 42 women’s health centers that offer abortions in Texas, leaving five in metropolitan areas.

After Republicans found procedural ways to end the filibuster, the crowd in the galley, which was overwhelmingly for abortion rights, screamed and yelled, delaying the process until past the midnight deadline.

The newly filed abortion bill is SB 1. In the House, it is House Bill 2 from Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Parker. Laubenberg originally filed the fetal pain bill in the regular session.

“Maybe Texas will come awake,” said Susan Topper, an abortion rights demonstrator. She came from The Woodlands, near Houston, after hearing about the protest on Facebook.

She said she didn’t expect to have an opportunity like this, craving such an event after seeing the filibuster.

She carried a hanger labeled “Not a surgical instrument.”

Julie Hertenberger, wearing a red piece of tape over her mouth with the word “Life” written in black to symbolize the voicelessness of the unborn, said she made the decision not to end an unplanned pregnancy more than 40 years ago.